Choices

In today’s blog I will begin to go over choices. Choices pertaining to what I use and recommend and how a personal situation can affects these.

In the past, 10 years or so I would do performing and recording gigs with various amount of instruments such as Roland, Moog, Oberheim and various other synthesisers and processors. Many of these were time to time unwieldy and had minds of their own. (which is the beauty of these technologies) but could prove to be disastrous in a live situation.

EARLY SOFTWARE SYNTHESIS

When the Software synthesisers came around, 1997 or so I did not embrace it as I would later. Poo Pooing them as fodder. The early incantations of these language based projects were a bit thin sounding on the side for my taste and carrying a desktop computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse, MIDI jam box and some type of controller was a pain within itself. Plus my early MIDI experiments with my MAC Quadra series computers proved to be uncommunicative (Serial Ports, SCSI) and would crash from time to time just doing MIDI!  The future, though had it eyes set on this technology. However, I stuck with my hardware based instruments.

MUSIC IN HIGH PLACES

In 2000 or so I was hired by Producer Parvene Michaels to work on a Television project entitled “Music in High Places”. I worked on graphics and had a great time in the bustling environment of a big budget project. Complete with celebrity musicians of the time such as Alanis Morisette, Collective Soul and Brian Mcknight. Parvene, whom I had worked for in the past, love to mess with technologies. So it was normal to be called up and go with her to Frys and buy stuff that she thought she needed.

TASCAM 424, Cubase VST, Reason and Abelton LIVE

Parvene, I believe bought this set up to work on dailies from the shoots. A Sony Vaio coupled with a Tascam 424 mixer. Software-wise it had a Full version Of Cubase VST, ADOBE Premier (a video editing program) and Photoshop. The only thing it was a PC and I had become accustomed to the MACS, specially my then new G3.

 After a short time the company bought a AVID system and Parvene sold me the Sony system for 1200 dollars. A great Price knowing that she paid double that and it was new. So I bought it and it sat in my studio for at least for a year with little usage.

Sometime later, a year or so, Suzanne (Doucet) showed me Propellerhead’s Reason and Abelton LIVE. at first I could not comprehend either of these programs. I had noinitial interest in them until I heard Reason. I ended up getting both. They seemed so fantastic though LIVE was a bit of a enigma with it’s clean GUI and I did not really know what to do with it…at first.

At this point in time (2001) I was fed up with the heavy gear, Drifty Tuning, CV and Gates, Hardware MIDI and thru boxes and specially SCSI. The protocol USB had shown it’s light. Now all I needed was a Keyboard controller that could simple connect without any mish mosh of cables.

THE OXYGEN 8

Reading a copy of Electronic Musician at Suzanne’s studio I came across an ad displaying a small 25 key silver controller . It’s name was the Oxygen 8 (named after Jarre, no doubt). Produced by a company I was familiar with MIDIMAN (Now M-Audio) I showed it to her and we both got excited. It advertised that it was a USB controller and worked as a simple midi thru device. well we both bought one. mine for the Sony (PC) Vaio and Suzanne for her newly acquired MAC laptop.

Europe (at a pinch)

So when I moved to Europe I took the Sony, Tascam, QUE 120 GB Hard drive, and Oxygen. I also took my Yamaha CSO1, KORG MS2000R, PPG 2.3 and Roland JV-880. the combination worked fantastically those four years or so, minus some crashes. I was somehow portable and could record on the fly nearly anywhere. But reality would soon set in.

UPDATE! UPGRADE!

My Sony Vaio ran 600 or so MHZ. It had a hard drive size of over a gig.  Automatic system updates from Microsoft was eating out my space. So the more tracks and Software synths I would use the more chance of a wipe out. Luckily for a 7200 RPM Que Firewire Drive I was able to store stuff and record directly unto it. When I returned to the states my poor little Sony had nearly had it. It had suffered a major system crash, Lost a color on it’s screen and was so painfully slow with my updated software. So I upgraded to the ACER 4200 Duo Core. Which I’m using now. Here is a breakdown on the ACER:

It overheats. It Blue screens.

Nice. Great system otherwise.  Sara, after a few, ummm… troublesome gigs, said no more laptop. Good for recording at home but not for a live situation.

BACK TO WHERE I STARTED

So comes the tidbit about choices. Oh, you thought I had already touched upon that. Somehow I have, but no. These coming up are choices. The earlier half was what I supposed to do. I had no real choices.

When Sara gave the ultimatum regarding the Laptop I was a bit frantic. Nothing I had could really replicate what I had done with the confounded device. I had no workstation Keyboard/module except for an ESQ1 and a MC303, no hardware sampler except for the Ensoniq Mirage. Nothing I could really use without a ton of gear.

So Sara and I began to write a list of what was needed to perform LIVE without a headache. It had to be compact. not to many cables and self sufficent plus on a budget.

A variety of devices went buzzed through my head but we first we got the external processing units. A Behringer 12 channel 1 space mixer. Roland JV880 and a Furman Power conditioner. This went into my old SKB 8 space rack and proved to be light enough to lug around. With it I dug out my Roland MC303 and Yamaha CS01

Now it was time on my part to figure out what I could use as a workstation. I spied a used Emulator 4 on craigslist. Did some quick research and found it perfect for our needs. Already Familiar with EMU samplers I set it up right away and filled the rest of the rack with it.. We rehearsed with it and found it as Sara said Powerful. During that time we also utilized some pedals: A Boss RV5 and Digital Delay 5 and Art Tube Amp with Phantom Power.

 

All n’ All this was a somewhat compact Performing unit at a budget we could afford. The rack was a tad heavy but not like my older gear. During this time as well we purchased a beat up KORG Trinity 76 which is being repaired (some keys were broken) but it proved to be too heavy with it’s case.

Then as life would permit I broke my Wrist at my job. Two Months earlier Sara had injured herself with a nasty fall on our front steps before a radio interview and performance at a ART Opening in Downtown Los Angeles. So out with the EMU. The rack now was too heavy to carry to gigs. What next?

That is to be continued.

Signing off.

 

An introduction to what this is and may be.

Hello. My name is Gary Miraz and this is my first trip in to the world of Blogs. A few weeks back my editor Bijan Tehrani asked me to create a blog discussing any of the projects I may be involved with and link these to his website @ www.cinemawithoutborders.com. The site mainly focuses on the film industry around the globe but also delves into technology of media and the applied arts it connects with. This being a blog I can discuss my thoughts and experiments in a wayward manner. Free of any limitations. My connection with Bijan stems from that I write film and sound reviews for his site.

I am mainly a graphic designer with over 15 years of professional expierence in the music industry. I studied at Otis Parsons in Los Angeles. Before that I played in various bands and projects. My main instrument being keyboards both acoustic and electric.

In 2001 I retired from the graphic scene and concentrated on music and released several albums. All collaborations. The first being with Suzanne Doucet.  A former German pop star from the 60’s and 70’s.

Having worked with Suzanne for some years as a graphic designer, she is a highy respected consultant for the music industry, this was an amazing opprotunity for me. And the album “Resonance” earned some many great reviews and respect from the listeners that I decided to do it full time if I could.  In 2003 I moved to Berlin, Germany and basically traveled and worked with other musicians. This was a dream come true but was not easy in many retrospects. This will be explained later on.

As of now I am working on the follow up to an album I did with my wife, Sara. That album “Hidden Soundtracks of the Found Mind” was limitly released in 2006 and has gone through some mix changes and is still in need of some work before I can lay it to rest. The follow up album has all the demo tracks done but needs to be recorded in a final manner. Since 2002 I have been working on a solo album. A project that has been recorded sporadically through Europe and South America over the last 5 years or so. In fact I have material enough for four to five albums. But since Last year with help from Sara I have been able to organize some of the material for a first release. That album entitled “Onward” is now fully mixed and awaiting for it’s IRSC codes and mastering session. Some tracks can be heard at www.mirazmusik.com and the myspace site: http://www.myspace.com/mirazmusikrecordings

In the next few blogs I will be discussing the trial and tribulations of recording a CD, Live performing and recording, equipment for a live performance both big and small, personal injury, rehearsal etiquette, spirituality and various types of gear both software and hardware based.

Until then. Signing off